The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

Washington Post iPhone app panned by gutsy WaPo technology writer: Symptom of worse woes?

Update, March 19: Hooray! The Post app in its cur­rent form now lets you change type size more grace­fully. Tap the screen while read­ing a story and you’ll see the options. – D.R.

Sey­mour Solomon, the real estate mag­nate in my D.C. news­pa­per novel, is among the Wash­ing­ton Telegram’s biggest adver­tis­ers and pals around with both the pub­lisher and the top editor.

But that doesn’t stop Jon Stone, the reporter in The Solomon Scan­dals, from inves­ti­gat­ing Sy’s Kong-sized polit­i­cal dona­tions and fed­eral office leases.

At the real-life Wash­ing­ton Post—not to be con­fused with my imag­i­nary daily—who’s the equiv­a­lent of the intre­pid Stone?

I nom­i­nate Rob Pego­raro (photo), the Faster For­ward tech colum­nist. On con­sumer issues, Rob never seems to flinch, and yes­ter­day he panned the Post’s new app for read­ing the paper on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. Even with the app sell­ing for just $1.99 for a year of use, he is telling his Post read­ers to “save your money for now.”

Rob—I met him a few years ago when he was check­ing out an early ver­sion of the One Lap­top Per Child computer—is once again right. In over­all aes­thet­ics and usabil­ity, the New York Times reader for the iPhone shreds the Post app, which is just one more exam­ple of the L Street’s online woes. If the Post is still into “Cre­ative Ten­sion,” why not take it beyond the tra­di­tional news­room? As a rule I pre­fer a gen­tle, friendly, nur­tur­ing man­age­ment in the The­ory Y style. But on pre­sen­ta­tion issues, the Post’s Net oper­a­tion is really that bad. Time for some fir­ings, even?

• Solomon Scandals hyperlocal series so far: A list for latecomers
• Wash. Post killing off domestic news bureaus: D.C. ‘prism’ better than the full story?
• Three ways to save the Washington Post: A few ‘Post Apocalypse’ musings from Alexandria
• Free paper copy of ‘The Solomon Scandals’ if you come up with the best replacement for ‘L Street’ and ‘WaPo’
• The trash factor: A big reason why newspapers are in trouble? And how can they cope with it?